FRIDAY, Sept. 12, 2003 (HealthDayNews) -- This Sept. 11, like the last one and the one before it, was a perfect late summer day. The sky was a bright blue, the air crisp and the visibility seemingly endless. Once again, it was a perfect day for flying.
Last year, on the first anniversary of the terrorist attacks on Washington and New York City, I flew from London to Newark, N.J., under tight security and amid a reverent hush in airports and airplanes. Heathrow was virtually deserted, our wide-body craft had no more than a dozen passengers and the Newark customs hall, on arrival, was a vast, empty cavern.
This year, at 8:30 in the morning, people arrived at Dulles Airport outside Washington as if it were just another day. There may have been fewer people than "normal," but there were people.
A respectable crowd gathered at Gate D24 for American Airlines flight 2963 to St. Louis. I would be flying on to San Antonio; the people around me would be connecting to Dallas, Honolulu, Phoenix. I saw people with babies, with briefcases, with cell phones. They were wearing cowboy hats, windbreakers, suit jackets. They could be traveling on business, to see family, to start a vacation or end one.
There were only a few reminders of what happened two years ago at almost this exact moment.
As I walked the length of the D concourse, I heard the names of the dead of 9-11-01 read out loud from the television monitors at each gate. The names followed me as I walked to the end of the concourse and were still being read as I walked back. The "Star Spangled Banner" played as I took my seat in the departure lounge.
And as the plane left its berthing spot, my father noticed a member of the ground crew was waving us out not with a baton, but with an American flag.
On the plane, the conversations turned to leg room and travel itineraries. People stood up to allow stragglers to take their seats and crew members struggled with catering carts. After we had taken off, I noticed a flight attendant, perhaps off duty, sleeping on three empty seats in the back.
Even in St. Louis, where we were delayed for an hour because of an engine malfunction, I felt no rise in the collective blood pressure. Last year, as our plane circled Newark, passengers were told to stay in their seat, that any attempt to stand up would be regarded as a hostile action. I got sick in my seat.
This year, the captain simply said, "Today, more than ever, we thank you for traveling with us."
When we arrived in San Antonio, the number of travelers seemed to have increased, perhaps because it was later in the day. People fought for a place next to the baggage conveyer and rushed to line up at the rental car desk.
It was Thursday, another day you might choose to travel for any number of reasons. Americans, it seemed, were on the move again -- even as they remembered, quietly.
